Photoshop tutorials

I've read through the tips and techniques here, but unfortunately am rather not very Photoshop savvy. Does anyone have a recommended tutorial or book or otherwise that may help with the rudimentary of photo processing?

Re: Photoshop tutorials

Hi Chris: I am a self taught Photoshop user. I learned a great deal from Lynda.com. This costs a monthly membership of around $30 or an annual menbership. You unlimited access to their tutorials for that price. You get video lessons and can participate. I had a 30 day free trial when I bought Photoshop and learned a great deal. There are also lessons on Youtube and Photoshop TV. Those tend to address specific tasks and don't start from the beginning. There is also Photoshop for Dummies. Samy's Camera, and other Camera Stores have workshops. Hope that helps.
Susan

Re: Photoshop tutorials

I also recommend lynda.com. You can sign up for a month at $25 (unless it's gone up) and have unlimited access to any tutorials you can watch during that month (just don't forget to cancel your membership before the end of the month). I've done both Photoshop and Lightroom and learned a lot -- I opened PS while I was watching the video and opened a photo of mine that resembled the one they were working on, and then stopped the video periodically to do the steps on my own photo. It's a great way to learn.

There's also Photoshop User TV, but that's a little more random. Lots of episodes, though.

I had to buy Martin Evening's Adobe Photoshop for Photographers for my PS class, and I don't really recommend it -- it's like a huge compendium and very hard to find what you want. A step-by-step book is more helpful for beginners, I think.

The Martin Evening book for CS5 is over 700 pages and makes a valiant attempt to cover the whole subject for both beginners and experts. But to some extent, as Elise said, it ends up being too advanced for beginners but doesn't have enough detail for advanced users. Such a massive subject does really need 2 books. However, that doesn't mean that I consider it to be a bad book. More a case of it being aimed principally at the intermediate level.

Re: Photoshop tutorials

I have Scott Kelby's "The Photoshop CS Book for Digital Photographers" ISBN 0-7357-1411-8 and "Adobe Photoshop CS% for Photographers" by Conrad Chavez ISBN-13: 978-0-321-71983-6. I also subscribe to www.kelbytraining.com which has been an invaluable source for learning tutorials.

Re: Photoshop tutorials

Chris. As an amateur, but as an educator, I dont think you can go past Lynda.com for $ 30 a month for 24 hrs a day. It is not only afforable but they are real quality audiovisual tutorials. It has been a slow process for me and Ive learnt enough to do basic PP. I will go back to it and there is just so much to learn. There arent enough hours in a day. Remember you have to go out and do some clicking- thats even more important.

Re: Photoshop tutorials

Lynda.com and Scott Keby and others are certainly authorities. There are learners who cannot afford or access them. Therefore I post my own tutorials. If you had a look you will find advanced methods nad tips among them. There are people you have found my tutorials helpful, because they are not only for beginners.

Re: Photoshop tutorials

Also, a few years ago, when I was trying to make sense of digital editing I bought one of the Tom Ang books. The Digital Photographer's Handbook explained everything in reasonably basic terms; but I don't know if it is still in print today.

All I can say, Chris, is that if you are trying to learn with CS5 which is possibly the most advanced software around - the best of luck to you.

The Martin Evening book may be worth considering in the long run. It will probably eventually start to make sense.

In those earlier days, not that long ago though, there was little in the way of easy to find help so I mostly learnt from reading the software Help Files.